Beloved
by ElouiseBates
Summary: Was Digory Kirke always a dusty, dry old bachelor? A two-part look at the Professor's youthful romance.
1. Chapter 1

Peter glanced curiously at the photograph in the silver frame. It had been on the Professor's desk at the big country house, he remembered, the one where it all started, and it was on his desk here, too. It obviously held great significance for him.

Peter's first thought was that the subject was Aunt Polly. It showed a young woman, likely in her early twenties, dressed in clothing that looked to Peter's masculine eye simply old-fashioned. Susan would have been able to pinpoint the exact year based on nothing but the woman's hat. Edmund would have catalogued everything and gone to the library to search out information. Lucy would have simply commented how happy the woman looked.

She did look happy, and it was the shape of her smile that made Peter suspect it was not, in fact, the Professor's old and dear friend. Aunt Polly had a wide, strong mouth; she smiled often, but it was a firm, controlled smile. The woman in the photograph appeared completely abandoned to joy. Her mouth was smaller, but her smile bigger.

The Professor came into the study, and Peter set the photograph down hurriedly.

"Sorry, Professor," he said, picking his book back up. "I was studying, and then I got thinking, and then … I got distracted."

Professor Kirke smiled dryly. "Yes, that does happen."

He sat back down behind his desk and motioned for Peter to go on with his Latin recitation. Peter began to do so, then hesitated.

"Sir?"

"Yes?"

Peter motioned to the picture. "If you don't mind my asking, sir … who is she?"

The Professor picked up the frame and smiled reverently, tenderly at the black and white figure. "My wife."

Latin was forgotten. Peter could feel himself gaping. It was not a familiar sensation for the High King of Narnia. The last time he'd been so flabbergasted was when he returned from his northern campaign against the giants to hear that Susan's seemingly foppish suitor had attacked Anvard and attempted to force Susan into a marriage, and nobody had bothered to send him a message.

"Your wife?"

The Professor raised an eyebrow. "Do you think it impossible that I should have been married? I wasn't always this dusty old man, you know. Once, hard though it may be to believe, I was as young as you are."

Peter permitted himself as a smile. "I was never as old as you are now, sir, but I wasn't always this young, either."

Professor Kirke chuckled. "Ah, the great mystery of Time." He set the frame back down on the desk with great care. "Go ahead and ask, Peter. I can see by the interest in your eyes we won't get any more work done until you've ferreted the information out of me." He shook his head. "And they say Edmund is the one with the insatiable curiosity …"

"It's just that you've never mentioned a wife, sir, not once in all the years I've known you. And I suppose … I mean, the girls thought … Aunt Polly …" Peter stumbled to a halt.

"Polly and I have always been and will always be very dear friends," Professor Kirke said calmly. "Our bonds are woven so closely together, though, that we could never fall in love. Somewhat like your cousin and Jill Pole, I suspect, though only time (Time again!) will tell for certain."

Peter didn't say anything. Susan was already predicting a match between those two, which made Edmund roll his eyes and Lucy laugh.

"So no, I never even considered marrying Polly. If, that is, what those rather incoherent sputters meant?"

Peter nodded sheepishly. "They did." He looked at the photograph with even more interest. "Do you mind telling me about her, Professor?"

* * *

Digory leaned back in his chair, staring into the past. The ache had long since gone out of this particular memory, leaving only beauty behind.

"She was the sunniest creature I have ever known. Rather like your sister Lucy, in fact, only she was never a queen, and so didn't have that aura of authority our Lucy does. She was sweet and kind and good, and I loved her very much." He was quiet for a moment, and Peter waited with grave respect. "We were only married a few years before she died. That cursed Spanish Influenza after the war! As if the war itself hadn't been enough of a horror."

"I'm very sorry," Peter said solemnly.

Digory shook his head. "It was a long time ago now, my son. Polly was my rock then; I don't think I would have survived without her comfort and stability. I even cursed Aslan, until Polly reminded me of the Garden in Narnia, and the apple, and Aslan's tears …" He leaned forward suddenly and gripped Peter's hand across the desk, hard. "Don't ever think the Lion doesn't mourn with us, Peter. He does. I've seen it. And my girl, well, she simply went to be with Aslan. I wasn't mourning for her so much as I was for me, who was left behind."

Peter nodded, with the look in his eyes of one who had also seen the Lion weep.

"Did you ever tell her, Sir?" he asked after a moment of respectful silence. "About Narnia, I mean?"

"Goodness me, yes," Digory said. "You don't think I could share my life with someone and not tell her about that, do you?"

"And she believed you?"

"Naturally." Digory saw the amazement Peter struggled so vainly to hide and guessed the reason behind it. It wasn't really that difficult. "You've tried telling someone, haven't you."

Peter suddenly looked as young as Eustace. "Well—yes. Just one."

"And it did not go well?"

Judging by Peter's face, that was an understatement. "Not exactly," the lad sighed. "I thought she would understand. I thought—well, it doesn't matter what I thought. I told it to her like a story first, you know, 'once upon a time there were four children …' and she laughed and said it was a terribly thrilling story, and had I thought of it all by myself? University students were certainly extremely clever these days." Peter's voice was high-pitched as he imitated her, and only someone who knew him so well as Digory would have heard the bitterness underneath.

"Then I asked her what she would think if I told her it were true, if I was one of those four children. And she—she laughed again. Told me I was too funny for words. Thank heavens I didn't try telling her anymore, or she might have had me locked up."

Digory's voice was very wise, and very kind. "Someday you'll meet someone, Peter, who will understand. Someone who will believe. You'll see it in her eyes, you'll hear it in her voice, and you'll know. And when you meet her, for goodness sake, my boy, don't let her get away!"

Then, finally, Peter smiled. He picked his Latin back up.

"Very well, Professor. I won't. Now, where were we?"

Digory let the moment pass, but not without another fond look at the laughing young girl who was, he knew, waiting for him in Aslan's Country.


	2. Chapter 2

Digory strove to keep his impatience hidden. It wasn't that he wasn't interested in Emeth's story—in another place and time he would have been fascinated by the implications behind Aslan's statement that all Emeth had done for Tash was accounted to Aslan—but another interest was rapidly becoming more pressing.

Though the youngsters hadn't guessed it yet, Digory figured they were dead. It was only logical, though he felt more alive now than he had at any point in his life. Though that was logical too, if one believed in an afterlife.

They were here, in the Real Narnia, with the shadows gone forever, and all the dear Narnian creatures who knew and were known to Aslan here with them. He would explain it to the children if he had to, though he would wait a bit and see if they came to that conclusion on their own accounts. After all, as Socrates said, one couldn't own knowledge unless one had reasoned it out for oneself. And it was perfectly simple, really, if one put one's mind to it.

If they were dead, then, it followed, (according to what he understood), that the ones who had gone on before were here as well, _further up and further in._

Surely, surely that meant that his beloved, his dear girl, his sweetheart was here somewhere, too, waiting for him.

Oh, not _waiting_. Time had no meaning here, as it did in the other realm. Hadn't Digory watched as the High King closed the Door to Time? No, she wasn't waiting, per se, but she was here. Expecting—yes, that was a better word—expecting him.

Digory's feet twitched underneath him, alive with an impatience of their own, ready to run and run and run until he could catch his girl in his arms and hold her again.

_I'm coming, beloved. Can you sense that I'm here? I'm hurrying to you as quickly as I can._

Polly's hand was at his elbow, and Polly's voice spoke in his ear.

"She'll be there, Digory. Don't fret."

He wasn't surprised that she knew what he was thinking; Polly always did. It was one of the benefits of a lifelong friendship.

"She'll still be young, and I am so old," he blurted unexpectedly.

"Old? Nothing of the sort!" Polly scoffed. "We're young again, Digory—younger and older both. Come now, you don't need me to explain it to you."

Digory chuckled. "No, I don't suppose I do." And he found that he couldn't fear the coming meeting—not really.

So it was, a short while later, when Jewel urged them all to run, that Digory let his fearless love lend wings to his feet.

* * *

"What, cousins!"

"Fledge!" Digory and Polly shouted together. "Good old Fledge!"

They rushed forward to throw their arms around the great neck they remembered so well, and for a moment Digory was a young lad again, fearing for his mother but trusting in the Lion, snuggled safely to sleep beneath Fledge's wings. He could almost taste the toffee-fruit on his tongue.

Fledge snorted with delight, nudged them with his nose, and blew in their ears. After only a few moments, though, he pulled back.

"There's someone else to see you, young Digory."

Digory's heart beat faster—or, if that was not physiologically possible in this new state, he thought it did.

"Oh, aye. We've been keeping each other company, sharing stories about you," with the neigh that passed for a horse's laugh. "Here he is, my lady," he called over his shoulder.

She stepped out from behind the great wings. Clothed in shimmering white, her dark hair spilling over her shoulders, her brown eyes glowing with even more life and love than he remembered, she was as glorious as the rising sun in his eyes.

_My love._

"My love," he breathed.

Polly pushed him forward, else he might have stood there dumbfounded for the rest of eternity. Then she was in his arms, and her scent filled his nose, and her lips were on his. Digory's heart filled with joy, and then spilled over, touching the air and grass and everything around him. Polly and Fledge backed away by mutual understanding, and the lovers were reunited at long last.

And Digory knew he was home.

_The End._


End file.
